


Disconnected

by Cameron_McKell



Series: Upon Further Review [10]
Category: Tron (1982), Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Computer Viruses, I/O Tower, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 01:25:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cameron_McKell/pseuds/Cameron_McKell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tron fails to answer, so Alan comes looking for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disconnected

The building was relatively large and wide, shaped rather like a cut-away funnel, pale-walled and curving in a world built on darkness, straight lines and sharp angles. There was some sort of array in the middle he couldn't even begin to hope to identify; it gave the whole thing a look between a dying flower and a satellite dish.

 

Alan touched a hand to the cool, inactive – but _not_ dead, at least – walls, and wondered what this place once was.

 

What it could be again.

 

Following some inner sense gifted to him with his new gridsuit – a white-on-mostly-white version of the suit he'd seen on Sam's old Tron toys when he was still a kid – Alan turned into the narrow, open doorway of the abandoned structure. It opened into a large room with a semi-circular staircase leading up into another area. He stopped, stuck in place with one foot on the first stair, at the sight that greeted him at the top.

 

That explained why he hadn't been answering, then.

 

Tron was sprawled awkwardly, half on the top landing, half spilling over the steps. His right arm was pressed tight to his side, where Alan could just see the branching, yellow-green veins of a viral infection; each line of circuitry it touched was either a rapidly weakening gray, or already dark. A slow, guttural sort of clicking noise started up in Tron's chest – different, and somehow more foreboding than Tron's occasional purring quirk – and his circuitry surged brightly blue-white for a moment, somehow forcing the infection to recede, back toward its point of origin. Before it could completely be expelled, though, his circuitry stuttered, turned a weak, all-over gray, and the corrupting tendrils began advancing once more.

 

“Tron...”

 

A soft, strangled keen acknowledged his User's presence, and Alan finally kicked his frozen body into motion, bounding up the stairs two at a time, until he could crouch, then sit by Tron's right side, staring critically at the damage. He didn't have anywhere near the strength to peel Tron's arm away from the damage in his side, so he went straight for his disks.

 

As Alan laid one hand on Tron's dorsal circuit – as a leverage point to remove his disks – he felt a vague sort of tugging sensation. Confused, he paused, and watched as warm white light suffused through the program's circuits; Tron had near-User levels of autonomy, but he was still a security program, so there was always the faintest hue of security-blue to his circuitry. _Almost_ always, at least; this new light in his circuitry was definitely full User-white.

 

Coupling that information with the strange tugging sensation, he shifted his hold until he could lay Tron's disks on the step at his far side and work on them one-handed, while his other hand kept constant contact, stroking down his dorsal circuit, to the circular circuits low on his back, then back up his side to repeat the process, just skirting the edges of the hostile code.

 

“There we go; just take what you need, Tron, I'm here...”

 

“A-Aaaa.... Aaal-aaa-” Tron attempted to speak, and failed, then shifted weakly, attempting to drag himself further up the stairs, before finally going still. Alan tried not to let worry over that stillness get to him – he had a lot of work to do if he wanted to fix Tron, after all – but it was still quite the relief when Tron used whatever borrowed energy the stillness had stored to turn himself over, until his head rested in his User's lap.

 

Alan looked down into eyes so similar to his own, unfocused with something like delirium, and stubbornly fixed a reassuring smile onto his face despite the worry; usually Tron could see through forced expressions like this, but Alan would bet money Tron could barely see at all, never mind analyzing expressions too deeply.

 

Having finally found the start of the damage, Alan caught up Tron's left hand with his right, and brought it up so he could place the lightest kiss over his program's knuckles; Alan then held Tron's hand against his lips, just feeling the texture of suit and circuit.

 

“I've got you...” He breathed the words more than verbalized them, and the large room echoed them back to him as he got to work.


End file.
